Insurance industry experts are often asked about ways to reduce workers’ compensation indemnity costs. One of the most common responses to this question is to implement and maintain an aggressive Return to Work (RTW) program. Employers are sometimes hesitant to embrace the concept of early RTW, perhaps because they do not fully understand the benefits of an aggressive RTW program. In this article, we will look at three of the many benefits of implementing and maintaining an aggressive RTW.
First, an RTW program establishes a sense of trust between the employer and the injured worker. Oftentimes, injured workers feel abandoned…Read More

Following heavy rains and localized flooding in Florida, the Sheriffs Automobile Risk Program, (SHARP), has experienced a rash of engine damage claims from our members caused by driving vehicles through standing water. The water coming into engine intakes is hydro-locking the engines thereby destroying the engines’ internal components.
So far the Dodge Charger is the leading vehicle for such damage claims, however the problem exists for other manufactures as well. In fact, this is a long standing issue with most manufacturers having spent a considerable amount of time and effort conducting studies only to conclude that usually the problem occurs…Read More

The fifth tenant of Below 100 is WIN – What’s Important Now? Many of us practice decision making every day without stopping to think about the steps we take to achieve our goals. That is true whether the decision relates to what we eat for breakfast, what route we take to work, what the priorities are in our schedules, how we operate our vehicles, or other everyday tasks.
In the law enforcement and corrections environment, we must train to address not just those mundane, every day decisions. We also must train to make life and death decisions in nanoseconds –…Read More

Remember, you can’t do a single thing or help a single person if you don’t get there. Studies show that when a driver is not focused on the road for just 4.6 seconds at 55 MPH that it’s equivalent to driving the length of a football field while blindfolded.
Always increase your safety zone if distractions arise to improve reaction time and to avoid other drivers who are distracted around you.…Read More

For years, the scariest of infectious diseases was HIV. Today’s nemesis, however, is hepatitis C (hep C), a virus that is spread by contact with the blood of an infected person and eventually causes liver disease.
While health officials estimate that about 1 million people in the United States are HIV infected, about 3 million to 4 million Americans are infected with hep C.
Several factors make hep C a deadlier adversary than HIV. For example, HIV cannot live outside the body, whereas the hep C virus can live outside the body for up to seven days. One drop of…Read More

On August 13, 2014 Judge Jorge Cueto of the 11th Judicial Circuit Court in Miami-Dade County issued an order declaring Chapter 440 unconstitutional (Florida Workers Advocates, et al. v. State of Florida). The FSRMF has no active FSWCSIP members in the 11th Judicial Circuit, therefore there is no immediate impact to the Fund. Final disposition of this issue is months away while the appeal process plays out. Steve Coonrod, partner with the defense firm of McConnaughhay, Duffy, Coonrod, Pope & Weaver, P.A., has provided an excellent summary of the FWA v. State of Florida case which is included in this …Read More

Wow! What an exciting time it is as technology is helping to keep law enforcement officers and members of the public safer!
The whole world seems to be talking about autonomous driving these days, and company after company is jumping into the effort to have self-driving vehicles to one degree or another. Even if you ignore the completely self-driving configurations, just think of how far automobile technology has advanced in the last decade – many new cars have features such as self-braking regardless of who, if anyone, is driving the vehicle.
At the Florida Sheriffs Risk Management Fund, we are…Read More

According to a study of police suicides from 2008 through 2012, the number of officers who took their own lives was twice the number of officers killed by felons. During each of these four years over 125 law enforcement officers died at their own hand. Statistics on this topic since that time have not been accurately maintained.
Officers have survived attacks and violent encounters because they kept a clear mind and used it to its most creative potential. The typical officer has only seconds to react – but it is in these few seconds that lack of clarity can be…Read More

The Florida Sheriffs Risk Management Fund would like to congratulate the winners of its 2015 Risk Management and Loss Control Awards. These award categories are meant to highlight those Sheriffs’ Offices that are partnering with FSRMF to not only save money, but to save lives. Award consideration is partially determined by the losses of a Sheriff’s Office over the more recent three-year period, as compared with other FSRMF members, giving due consideration to the size and geographical location of the agency.

EXCELLENCE IN RISK MANAGEMENT AND LOSS CONTROL AWARD

FSRMF gives this award to three Sheriffs’ Offices that have demonstrated…Read More